Business Is Looking Up

Last month, as America was celebrating the 30th anniversary of man’s landing on the moon, another Space Age achievement was taking form in Southern California. Thanks largely to Congress’ recent decision to allow private companies to send up sophisticated spacecraft, the number of commercial space launchings has topped government launchings in the United States for the first time. The Commerce Department projects that the revenues American space companies receive each year to design, build and launch satellites will grow from $88 billion in 1997 to $117 billion in 2001.

That’s good news for California, where more than 60% of the world’s satellites are built. Most are assembled at Boeing’s Long Beach plant and many are launched at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Oxnard, the nation’s only polar orbit launch site.

With SpaceDev Inc., based in the San Diego County city of Poway, announcing it is funding an asteroid-mining mission, space, once an object of wonder, is increasingly becoming a frontier of opportunity like the Old West.

This is not to say that riches will come easily, and some companies have already been pinched. Low demand and technical problems, for instance, set Motorola back a billion dollars last year on its much-touted Iridium satellite phone network. But booming investment in private space ventures might well be the Apollo astronauts’ most enduring legacy. Neil Armstrong’s “small step for a man” on the moon could prove to be a giant leap for business.